"The Pulse" -- #103 / Total Market Factor Index

Recruiting Timeline:

Banking:

Where We’re At:

• SA 2026: Provident Healthcare Partners and Mesirow opened their applications. 103 firms are recruiting for SA 2026.

• FT 2026: No new updates. 2 firms are actively recruiting for FT 2026  

• If you need some interview support or just need a place to vent, check out our Coaching Program: Coaching for banking, consulting, and buyside recruiting | The Pulse. 95%+ of those coached for the summer 2025 recruiting season received offers!

New SA 2026 Applications:

• Provident Healthcare Partners: Boutique healthcare shop (SA 2026)

• Mesirow Financial: MM IB based in Chicago (SA 2026)

New FT 2026 Applications:

• None

See below to gain access to our premium database, updated weekly, which houses the application processes for over 300+ banks/consulting/buyside firms! Gain an edge over everyone else by not having to spend countless hours tracking applications and deadlines.

Consulting:

Where We’re At:

• McKinsey and Bain released their full-time and summer analyst roles 3 weeks ago. As applications start opening, make sure to apply early and often.

SA 2026 released apps:

• None

FT 2026 released apps:

• ZS Associates - Decision Analytics Associate Consultant (FT 2026)

Buyside:

Where We’re At:

• SA 2026: GCM Grosvenor and Chicago Fundamental Investment Partners opened their apps this week. Currently 99 buyside firms are recruiting for SA 2026 seats 

New SA 2026 released apps:

• GCM Grosvenor: $76bn multi-strat asset manager, PE secondaries intern (SA 2026)

• CFI Partners: Multi-strat credit fund (SA 2026)

The database is updated weekly and contains 300+ Investment Banking and Consulting internships/full-time positions along with:

• Interview tips for specific companies

• Interview prep material

• Applications and deadlines linked so that you can apply with one click

• Insider information about the application process

• Professionals to network with

• Buyside deadlines, interview prep, and people to network with for the sweatiest of students

We send the updated dataset every week with the latest banking and consulting job postings. We released our 103rd update today.

Students we have been helping have already landed roles at Blackstone, Goldman, J.P. Morgan, Jefferies, Citi, and Solomon.

To get access to the database and the weekly updates, you make a one-time investment of $65 Credit Card / Debit Card: (ThePulsePrep—Stripe.com) that grants you annual access to the updated database (please reach out for additional payment options). If you don’t find our services helpful, we simply ask for feedback on an area we can improve upon and will refund your $65.

This is a small investment for a huge payout when you secure your dream offer!

Premium Database——>Database for banking, consulting and buyside roles | The Pulse 

Market Update:

Snapshot of the Macro

Today, we are covering a snapshot of the positive and negative macroeconomic factors impacting markets today. (Mostly focused on the U.S.)

Pros:

• Rates cut 100bps. Federal Funds rate now stands at 4.25-4.50%

  

  Source: NY FED

• 10-year and 2-year not inverted

  

  Source: FRED

• Possibly lower corporate taxes

  

  Source: Trading Economics

• Inflation down to 2.3%

  

  Haven’t Seen Tariff Effect Yet (Source: FRED)

• Wage growth outpacing inflation

  

  ~200bps of Real Income (Source: Statista)

• Market rebounded from lows caused by tariff announcements

  

  Hopefully You Didn’t Miss the Generational Buying Opportunity (Source: Google Finance)

Cons:

• Earnings forecasts are inconsistent, no one is able to predict current policy shifts

• M&A and IPO activity slower due to tariffs

• Higher tariffs are being placed globally, will cause an increase in prices

  

  Source: Investopedia

• Valuations back to highs

  

  S&P 500 PE Ratio at 30.7x (Source: multipl.com)

• Homes are too expensive

  

  Peep the Price 5 Years Ago (Source: FRED)

• Bankruptcies rising

  

  Source: U.S. Courts

• FICO Scores Yet to be Re-Rated from Resumption of Student Loan DQ Reports

  

  (Source: Experian)

• Consumer savings rate is trending lower

  

  Savings Rate at 3.9% (Source: FRED)

• Wars between Ukraine / Russia and Israel / Palestine

• U.S. national debt is still high

Middle-Ground Items:

• Potential nearshoring and onshoring of manufacturing

• Spreads trending closer to median levels

  

  Source: FRED

• Spending remains focused on necessities, but is stable

  

  Source: Deloitte

• Unemployment rate at 4.2% 

  

  Source: FRED

• DTI normalizing at 11.3%, supported by the wealth affect

  

  Source: FRED

Disclosure: Nothing written here is financial advice or should be used for investment decisions.

How to Answer “Tell me about yourself?”

Without fail, in every job interview, you will get a question along the lines of “Tell me about yourself?” or “Walk me through your resume”. These questions are extremely important.

They offer the interviewer a chance to look at your resume and also for you to tell your story.

Your answer should ideally contain the following:

1. Where your from

2. School, major, perhaps how you ended up at each

3. What sparked your interest in the field you are interviewing in

4. Extracurriculars/interests and how the experiences contributed to your interest

5. Prior internship experience

That is a lot to cover in 90 seconds, so be concise and choose what you bring up wisely. The worst thing you can do is take 5 minutes to answer this question and fail to sell yourself to the interviewer.

Make sure the interests/internships you discuss are relevant and recent. Discussing how you were a busboy in 10th grade does not provide much relevant information when you are interviewing for a consulting role as a Sophomore in college.

Try to humanize yourself as much as possible. These interviewers speak with dozens of candidates, so make yourself memorable by being likeable and interesting. At the end of the day, everyone wants to work with people they like.

Practicing answers to these questions is really important, but don’t sound like a robot. There’s no reason you should need to memorize information about yourself. It should flow pretty naturally.

Going Forward:

You Got a Job?

Congrats! Please share our newsletter with your younger peers looking to recruit for banking / consulting / the buyside.

Please reach out to us with any questions about recruiting or if you’re interested in meeting the team! ([email protected])

We are happy to chat, review resumes, or help set up a coaching session

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“The Pulse” #103

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